License tracking and enforcement is a long-standing challenge in the software industry. Small institutions and large institutions alike may spend considerable resources and personnel to ensure compliance. For example, some financial institutions employ a team of employees full-time to ensure that the institution is compliant with software licenses.
Some software licenses allow a company to exceed a given number of licenses as long as the company pays for any excess licenses. Determining the excess licenses needed may be performed during an audit. Auditing license use, however, may be expensive and time consuming and may also contribute to customer dissatisfaction.